Ask Paul: October 9 (Premium)

After a much-needed and too short mini-break, I’m back to wish you another Happy Friday and try to answer some questions.

Cloud gaming

Just wondering so I am in on both Stadia and Gforce now and I know while both are not greatest platforms for me I have all the games I want. Fortnight, Pubg, tomb raider, destiny, nba etc. My question is before you went on vacation you said you wonder how long stadia will be around. With the release of new Chromecast with no stadia support and the fact they are not trying to hype up stadia on the platform they own YouTube. Not ever paying gaming youtubers to stream stadia games on YouTube … Do you really think google would just pull the plug?

The problem for Stadia is that Google has a terrible history of suddenly killing off services, and that’s the worry here. I will say that I don’t expect all of the current game streaming services to succeed and that it’s only a matter of time before it consolidates down to a few major players. And some of the biggest companies in video games, like Sony and Nintendo, haven’t even weighed in on cloud gaming yet. They could both be formidable entries.

But Google? There’s one major pro and one major con.

The pro is that Google is one of only a handful of companies—the other two big ones being Microsoft and Amazon—that could even make a successful game streaming service at scale because of its infrastructure and the required computer science expertise. (And I always felt that Google might have made more sense as a back-end service for other companies’ game streaming services; I suppose that could still happen.)

The (potential) con is Stadia’s business model. Where the other game streaming services are purely subscription-based, Stadia is largely about purchasing individual games (where you do get access to some “free” games when you subscribe to Stadia Pro). So it’s a bit more like the Apple movie store and less like Netflix. I’m not sure that’s a good model, especially for the worry you mention (Google having to refund users if it closes the service). But I suppose it opens up the possibility of it having more AAA titles, since those games tend not to be included in subscription services so far. And since Google doesn’t have an existing traditional game platform, I’m sure that’s why they went in this direction.

The issue, of course, is that you “lose” those games when you leave. (Obviously, they’re still attached to your account.) That’s true of a console, sure, but streaming services are, by nature, typically not sticky: You can move from one to the other and back again at any time. By tying purchases to the service, Stadia is stickier than other game streaming services. And so you want to be sure about it before diving in.

And I’m still not sure. I was thinking about testing Stadia now that it’s been almost a year, and the service has grown and improved. But that latter bit makes that difficult. With Xbox Game Pass game streaming, I have over 150 games to choose from, and there will be soon be over 200. What’s available for “free” on Stadia Pro? Dozens of games?

Would it be like Microsoft books kind of thing were they just refund us all for games be bought? Would they start a new platform like a Google Music to YouTube Music? Is xCloud doing any better than Stadia? Is cloud gaming just not a mature market?

Cloud gaming is absolutely not a mature market. Microsoft has seen some good success with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, and that’s the service that includes its cloud streaming functionality. But it’s still small compared to console sales. This will change over time.

Win64?

Hi Paul. So, we have been relying on Win32 for quite a while now, the API that powers all the legacy software we use as well as quite a bit of current stuff. But, 64-bit computing and operating systems have been the norm for almost a decade as well. My question is, why isn’t there a Win64? Instead we use that funky translation layer when 64-bit Windows runs 32-bit software. Would it just be too much effort for too little return? I would have thought it would be more efficient.

So, there sort of is a Win64, but instead of making it a separate set of APIs, Microsoft simply made Win32 work across both 32-bit and 64-bit systems. This was the right approach, and it was made possible by the fact that both 32-bit and 64-bit address spaces are large and “flat” (that, is not segmented, like 8/16-bit was). The only major difference for developers, really, is the size of pointers.

But I don’t think there’s any/much overhead to the 32-bit to 64-bit translate layer, and it’s what made Windows 10 on ARM possible in the first place. Also, we’re done: There won’t be a Win128 or whatever, ever: With 64-bits, the theoretical maximum address space is 16 exabytes (16 million terabytes). Surely, no one will ever need more than that! (I await being quoted on that.)

Windows 10 support lifecycle

OldITPro2000 asks:

As we all know, Microsoft is still steadfast in their 18 months of service for each Windows 10 release, except for releases in the fall for Enterprise and Education editions which get 30 months of service. The 30 months of service for those editions is obviously due to customer demand, but why does Microsoft bother to even have this servicing distinction in the first place? They are updating the codebase anyway and there is no upgrade revenue they would gain from Home and Pro customers who would like to stay on an older version a bit longer.

I’ve never understood the servicing and support model for Windows 10, and while it’s fair to say that Microsoft has improved/extended it for both consumers and businesses since its original and vague plans, I still don’t think they’ve gone far enough for either audience.

That said, the current model, in which individuals get one major feature update every year (major here referring to “how” it’s installed, not what’s in it) and one minor (e.g. “cumulative”) update is a pretty good compromise. A better one would be one upgrade each year, of course. Or just aligning it with the 30-month service model you mention and supplying cumulative updates in the interim. Windows 10 is mature now. There’s no need for this level of churn, and plenty of evidence that Microsoft can’t do it successfully anyway.

If you look at the most recent usage stats, you’ll see that 60.2 percent of Windows 10 PCs out in the world are running the 190x releases, and a further 33.7 percent are on 2004. So ~83 percent of all Windows 10 PCs are on fairly recent/modern versions. That’s “good,” and seems close to Microsoft’s original goal of getting the entire user base on the most recent version. But it required some serious contorting of the plan, since every other release isn’t even a real feature update. And we’re still talking about three different versions here.

Why Microsoft does this is uncertain. None of its customers want this many updates.

BeOS

bschnatt asks:

I’m sure you’re aware of BeOS / Haiku (I’ve heard you talk about BeOS, at least). How do you feel about Haiku now? The developers are almost literally moving at glacier speeds – it’s been just shy of TWO DECADES since its inception and they still haven’t released a 1.0 version. I realize it’s a hobbyist OS, but is there any point anymore? When BeOS came out, it ran rings around Windows graphics-wise, but now with even a moderate graphics card, any bargain PC can do quite well with gaming. And there are dedicated sound cards. BeOS’ vaunted low-latency chops aren’t really that special anymore. And, of course, Linux hasn’t been sitting still and is quite respectable as a desktop for most people.

Yeah. That last bit is the big problem today: Linux does exist, and so a standalone BeOS-type system just doesn’t make sense anymore. I’d rather them bring the UI and whatever useful components exist to Linux than work on something different.

But looking over the screenshots of Haiku, it’s hard not to feel a twinge of nostalgia and a reminder of what we’ve lost. Back in the late 1990s, I adored BeOS and had hoped to see it become more successful. It still looks modern to me in ways that NextStep/OpenStep or the Windows/NT of the day do not.

Google breakup

erich82 asks:

Hello Paul, Happy Friday. If Google were to be broken up, in your best guess, what do you think that would look like? Whether positive or negative, what would be the impact of that? Whatever may happen, do you suppose it’s possible Google would be forced to abandon their current business model of surveillance and go to paid subscriptions? Personally, I’d be thrilled if Google went to a paid subscription model, rather than their incessant tracking, and the misbehavior that goes along with that.

I was just wondering about this. When Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson proposed breaking up Microsoft, the goal was to separate its dominant product, Windows, from other products—Office, IE—that were possibly only successful, or were/would become dominant, because of their tie-ins. I recall him predicting that a separate Office company might make the suite available on Linux as well, once it was released from the Windows shackles.

So what would this look like on Google? I see two possibilities. One, separate out the advertising bit as its own company, which would force businesses like Search, Workspace, Gmail, Photos, YouTube, and so on to stand on their own, in part via the subscription model you mention. Or two, making search and advertising their own businesses and then separating out the rest into a third (“apps).

That said, I don’t actually see this happening. More likely is a set of business practice remedies that would be similar to what we see in Europe, where Google cannot artificially promote its own services, or downplay competing services, in search results. The privacy bit is similar: I feel like we need privacy laws similar to those in EU that will curtail Google and others from selling our personal data to advertisers.

Pooling Microsoft 365 Family storage

staganyi asks:

I just stockpiled a bunch of ms 365 family subscriptions for $20/year from an ignite offer. Anyways, it got me thinking about the storage of 1TB/user and wondered if there’s ever been talks of MS making a 6TB pool of data for the whole family? I find it annoying having to share folders among users to get around the 1TB/user limit. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Thanks.

I don’t see them doing this. The point of Microsoft 365 Home isn’t to have a single person use 6 TB of data, it’s to let a family affordably access Microsoft’s apps and services. And I feel like the system is predicated on the fact that most families will only use a tiny portion of that available space.

The good news, of course, is that those who need/want to can work around this.

Windows 10++

madthinus asks:

Any more hints on the big Windows 10 changes? Are they working on this in a side branch to surprise everyone?

Not directly. Mary Jo is convinced that we’re going to move to a model where 2xH1 is a Windows 10X release and 2xH2 is a Windows 10 desktop release, but I’ve not heard this myself. It seems like the recent Ignite or Surface events might have been an obvious time to discuss the future of Windows if there was anything to say, but there was nothing, of course. I may start asking around: I don’t usually do this, but it’s been unusually quiet.

Microsoft Teams evolution

Vladimir asks:

Hi Paul, how is your transition to teams going? We recently started to heavily use teams to communicate and sharepoint for our shared folders. We are still having some issues with computers stopping to sync with sharepoint with no easily understandable reason. Do you experience anything like that?

No, my/our move to Teams has gone very well this year. And I’m impressed by how much functionality they’ve added as well. We’re a small team, but in my experience, accessing SharePoint/OneDrive-based files from within Teams works well.

I am also wondering about how the teams interface will evolve over time. One feature we miss a lot is the possibility to open more than one document at the same time. Do you know if it will be possible to open multiple teams windows or some kind of tabbed interface?

This seems inevitable, but an even better approach would be just opening a new window when you open a document. Having it open in-line inside Teams is a little odd.